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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (49377)	2/24/2012 9:13:01 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Children born and raised without fathers are a major problem to society and to themselves. There is nothing "fair" about increasing the number of such children. Well said.

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (49377)	4/26/2012 11:07:02 PM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Stealing Our Elections By Peter Ferrara on 4.25.12 @ 6:09AM All of it done under the watchful eye AG Holder and ACORN Obama. Columnist David Limbaugh, brother of Rush, asks in a recent column, "Can anyone think of an innocuous reason that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder oppose state voter ID laws?" The correct answer is definitely "No!" But even Limbaugh dances around the full answer to the question, suggesting only at the end that the lack of a good reason to oppose voter ID suggests that the real motivation is an ulterior motive to rig elections. Let's be fully frank. It's not just Obama and Holder, true. It's the whole Democrat party. And the transparent reason they oppose Voter ID, and favor loose election laws like Motor Voter, election day registration, mail in registration, online voting, and extended voting over days and even weeks before Election Day is that vote fraud is a central Democrat strategy for "winning" elections. Protect Your Vote The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) is a legal foundation started by the late Robert B. Carleson, the former chief welfare advisor to Ronald Reagan, both when he was Governor of California and President of the United States. Carleson, closely backed by Reagan, spawned a revolution in welfare policy, starting with the famous California welfare reforms originating in 1971, spreading across the country throughout the 1970s, going national with Reagan's reforms as President in 1981, and then culminating in the outrageously successful, fundamental, block grant reforms of the old, New Deal, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in 1996. Today the ACRU serves as a counterpoint to the ACLU, with former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese and other Reagan Administration alumni or associates serving in the organization, including myself, working as General Counsel since the organization's founding in 1998. The Chairman and President since 2006 is Susan A. Carleson, Robert Carleson's widow. A new project of the ACRU is "Protect Your Vote!" focused on countering vote fraud. It serves at the ACRU website as a one-stop shop covering voting requirements in every state, current state efforts to strengthen ballot security, and the push-back from the left. The project promotes model legislation for adoption by the states, including mandatory voter ID, mandatory proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and required signature verification and proof of ID when voting by mail. Reform measures would also include modification or repeal of the federal Motor Voter dictates, which require states to register anyone applying for a driver's license without proof of citizenship, to offer mail-in registration with no proof of identity, and to prohibit government employees from challenging any newly registered voters. Motor Voter also hampers states from purging the voter registration rolls of those who have died or moved to another state. The ACRU project also encourages citizens in every state to get involved in the process to protect their vote by volunteering to be poll watchers, help in voter registration drives, and a multitude of other pre-election and election day efforts. Motor Voter was the first bill passed under the Clinton Administration. It is a transparent attempt to make our electoral system vulnerable to voting by illegal aliens, who would overwhelmingly support Democrats, and to multiple voting organized by unions and left-wing extremist groups like ACORN. There can be no other explanation for such lax policies, as Limbaugh's question suggests. The ACRU's worthy Protect Your Vote project begins to counter this depreciation of our democracy. It deserves support from everyone who recognizes the current Paul Revere moment calling patriots to action to prevent the still developing Marxist takeover of America. The Vote Fraud Project Democrats make the laughable, undocumented, unsupported charge that voter ID and other ballot integrity reforms are just Republican tricks to suppress minority voting, which goes Democrat by wide margins. Our fine Attorney General Eric Holder sagely advises reformers "to resist the temptation to suppress certain votes in the hope of attaining electoral success and, instead, achieve success by appealing to more voters." But that misleading rhetoric is just a smokescreen for vote fraud. When partisan conspirators challenged the constitutionality of Indiana's voter ID law, the suit was laughed out of court because the plaintiffs could not produce one voter who had been prevented from voting because of the voter ID requirement. Numerous academic studies, cited in the Supreme Court opinion, show no effect of voter ID laws in suppressing voter turnout or participation. In some states that have adopted voter ID, minority voting increased rather than declined in the next election. These are the reasons that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's model voter ID law as constitutional. In that case, the established facts showed that 99 percent of Indiana voters already had the required ID (see, e.g., drivers licenses). Those who were disabled or elderly, who might not drive, were automatically entitled to vote by absentee ballot, which required no voter ID. Those who were too poor to pay any nominal fee for an ID were entitled to a state-issued ID for free. No wonder not a single voter could be found who was not able to vote because of the voter ID requirement. That is why Limbaugh's question is so apt: Can anyone think of an innocuous reason that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder oppose state voter ID laws? Why did Attorney General Holder just blow off the Supreme Court in using the authority of the Voting Rights Act to nullify voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas? Did he find a single voter in either state who had been prevented from voting because of the requirement? If he had, we would all know his or her name by now. Holder assures us that a vote fraud problem "does not really exist" in the United States. But video guerilla James O'Keefe schooled Holder on the problem. With the video camera rolling, an O'Keefe associate indicated to a D.C. poll worker that he was Eric Holder, provided Holder's address, and asked for a ballot to vote. Handing the ballot to the white O'Keefe associate, the poll worker waived off an offer to show an ID, saying, "As long as you're in here and you're on our list and that's who you say you are, we're OK." Sure, a single documented case of easy vote fraud success does not represent a real problem. But the courts in upholding voter ID have noted that a state does not have to wait until vote fraud makes a mockery of its elections before taking action. But in some jurisdictions that mockery may already be here. As the Washington Times editorialized on April 17: In April 2011, officials for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Nevada pleaded guilty to running an illegal voter-registration scheme. Earlier this month, Democratic Party officials in Indiana were indicted on vote fraud charges for purportedly forging signatures on Barack Obama's 2008 primary petitions. In Virginia, 10 felons were charged with making false statements on voter registration forms." Of course, in the early 1990s, President Obama actually ran ACORN's Project Vote in Illinois. Early on the morning of June 5, union members in Chicago will be boarding union rented buses to ride to Wisconsin to vote early and often that day for the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They will vote in the name of dead people still on the rolls, or those who have moved to other states, or under fraudulently registered names on the rolls through some ACORN-style project. Wisconsin Republicans and conservative activists, maybe with their own video cameras, should be on the lookout for such buses rolling into the state from Illinois. A February report from the Pew Center on the States found 1.8 million names of dead people still registered to vote on state rolls. Another 2.75 million are registered to vote in more than one state. The study found altogether that 24 million voter registrations, 13 percent of the nation's total, contained major inaccuracies or were otherwise invalid. That's a lot of room for mischief. Facilitating that Chicago union Wisconsin project, and similar conduct in swing states this fall, is the real reason Holder opposes voter ID. By his official actions as Attorney General, Holder is running a vote fraud conspiracy right out of the AG's office. And that is being done with ACORN Obama's approval. spectator.org

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (49377)	4/29/2012 5:53:58 PM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The Utterly Horrifying English Welfare State Daniel J. Mitchell I’ve occasionally commented on foolish public policy in the United Kingdom, including analysis on how the welfare state destroys lives and turns people into despicable moochers. But if you really want to understand the horrifying absurdity of the welfare state, check out these passages from a report in the Daily Mail. Carl Cooper thought he was doing a public service by offering seven benefits claimants the chance to work for him. But the company boss was flabbergasted when none of them turned up on the first day. Astonishingly, not a single one even had the courtesy to tell the marketing firm boss they would not be coming in. Mr Cooper and other staff members called the new employees to ask them where they were. Initially, some refused to answer their phones when they recognised the number calling them. When the staff finally got through, five said they would be better off staying on state benefits rather than doing the commission-based work. Four of the seven also claimed torrential rain had put them off. Wow. Five out of seven admitted that mooching off the taxpayers was a better way to live. What does that tell us about the over-generosity of handouts? Let’s continue. Mr Cooper, who runs Car Smart, a marketing firm for independent car dealers in Canterbury, Kent, criticised the benefits system and said it rewarded people for doing nothing. He added: ‘I was left stunned when none of the new recruits turned up for work. They are a bunch of workshy layabouts. ‘These are people who are so morally twisted that they would rather stay on the dole than work. ‘People keep saying there are not enough jobs in the UK but the real problem is that there are not enough determined or ambitious people. ‘The benefit system is too generous and encourages the unemployed to stay unemployed and just breeds more laziness.’ But it’s even worse than Mr. Cooper realizes. He’ll still be paying these people, but in the form of taxes that then get redistributed to subsidize idleness. You might think the moochers would lose their benefits because they chose laziness over work, but you would be wrong. Mr Cooper said all his employees received a basic retainer of £100 a week initially and are enrolled on to the company’s commission structure, which could see earnings rise to up to £400 a week. The jobseekers who failed to turn up will not lose their benefits because the basic pay is under the minimum wage. I found the above story via Kyle Smith, who also cites a story from the Times about a crazy proposal to have bureaucrats scrub floors and serve as human alarm clocks for the welfare class. Town hall officials have been told to get down on their hands and knees and “clean the floors” of the homes they visit under David Cameron’s Troubled Families programme. They have also been urged to turn up at family homes at 7am if necessary to get parents out of bed and children ready for school on time. The orders were issued by the programme head, Louise Casey… “I want to see people rolling up their sleeves and getting down and cleaning the floors if that is what needs to be done. If a family needs to be shown how to heat up a pizza, show them how to do it. If it takes going round three times a week at 7am to get Mum up, then do it.” I would have included a link to the underlying story, but the Times has the most incompetently designed website I’ve ever encountered (presumably because they want to charge, but they don’t even give you a chance to click on the story and then pay). Anyhow, I have three quick reactions to this bit of foolishness. 1. I’d like to see the head bureaucrat, Ms. Casey, spend a month scrubbing floors and waking people up at 7:00 a.m. She strikes me as the typical leftist clown, sitting in an office enjoying a cushy and overpaid job while dreaming up absurd ideas on how to waste taxpayer money. Maybe if she gets her hands dirty by “rolling up [her] sleeves,” she’ll learn the difference between blackboard theorizing and the real world. 2. My gut reaction is that the government should cut the handouts to these dysfunctional households. For every day the welfare bums aren’t up on time to get their kids to school, they lose 10 percent of their loot. If their floors are dirty, that’s another 10 percent. If you want to change their behavior, start cutting into the budget for cigarettes and booze. 3. More realistically, we’re dealing with a problem of people who have little if any self-respect, and they pass horrible habits to their children. Kicking them off the dole might wake up some of them, but I suspect more than a few of them are past the point of no return. Society would probably be better off if their kids were put in foster homes, but I’m sure government would screw that up as well. Stories like this leave me increasingly convinced that the only good approach is radical decentralization. Get these programs out of capital cities like Washington and London. The U.S. welfare reform was a decent start, but get responsibility to the local level. And in cities, put neighborhoods in charge. Have those small communities in charge of raising the money and spending the money. That approach is far more likely to generate good ideas and good solutions, though I confess I’m pessimistic about anything working. But we should figure out ways to stop inter-generational poverty and welfare. I gather it’s considered bad form to suggest mandatory birth control for welfare recipients, so has anyone proposed a different approach that might work? finance.townhall.com

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (49377)	7/13/2012 10:07:14 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Republicans dispute Obama's 'fair share' claims, say top earners already pay enough By Jim Angle Published July 12, 2012 FoxNews.com President Obama has elevated one question to a key campaign issue -- what is a "fair share" of taxes? Obama repeatedly invokes tax fairness as a major campaign issue, returning over and over to the phrase "fair share," as he did on June 22 when he talked about a policy "that asks the wealthiest Americans to help pay down our deficit, to do their fair share." At a May 14 campaign stop, he used similar language, saying the idea is to make "sure that everybody is paying their fair share." Republicans, however, question the premise. "You got the top 2 percent paying almost half of all income taxes. Is that fair?" Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. Kyl was referring to official figures showing how much various income levels earn of the nation's total income compared to how much they pay of the nation's total income taxes. IRS figures show the top 1 percent of earners take home 16.9 percent of the nation's total income, but pay 36.7 percent of the nation's income taxes. The top 5 percent take home a little more than 31 percent of total income but pay almost 59 percent of all income taxes. And the top 10 percent earn just over 43 percent of the total income but pay more than 70 percent of all income taxes. "How are you going to make it fairer? If they pay 75 percent?," asks Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute. "If they pay 90 percent? If they pay all of it? Will that finally be fair?" As it now stands, 90 percent of all Americans pay only 30 percent of all income taxes. "If we want an income tax system that is fair according to the Obama administration's own standards, we already have it," Sen. Kyl says. "The argument that top-tier earners are not doing enough just does not hold water." However, advocates of higher rates for the wealthiest Americas typically argue that it is much easier for those top earners to pay more in taxes, as compared to lower-income Americans who have much less discretionary income. The president does not mention another factor in the fairness equation -- close to half of American workers pay no federal income taxes at all. "That's extremely progressive," says Arthur Brooks. "That's more progressive than our European friends, as a matter of fact." And Kyl notes, "people who do not share in the sacrifice of paying taxes have little direct incentive to care whether the government is spending and taxing too much." The administration often points to the ultra wealthy who sometimes pay lower rates because they have a lot of deductions. But the averages for all groups paint a more accurate picture. The top 1 percent, for instance, pay an average tax rate of more than 24 percent. The top 5 percent -- a tax rate of a little more than 20 percent. The top 10 percent -- about 18 percent. For the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers, the average rate is 1.85 percent. Though fairness is one of the president's favorite themes, polls suggest voters are not that receptive. A Democratic think tank polled independents in 12 battleground states and found the president's fairness message does not resonate. "They don't see themselves as victims in the system, so about 60 percent of them say our system is basically fair," explains Lanae Erickson Hatalsky of the Democratic think tank Third Way. "When you ask them how to grow an economy, they didn't talk about fairness. They talked about opportunity." "When the president of the United States or any politician basically equates spreading the wealth around with fairness, that's fundamentally at odds with what most Americans think fairness means." Even Democrats who agree the system is progressive, though, still argue taxes on the wealthy may have to go up. "We have a country that's aging. We have deficit problems going forward," says Chuck Marr of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. "And so in the coming years there's going to be pressure to sort of bring these taxes off the bottom where they are now." Nevertheless, few dispute the tax system is progressive, or that the wealthy pay what many see as a fair share. In fact, one recent poll by the newspaper The Hill asked people what the maximum tax rate should be, and 75 percent of them said 30 percent or below. That 30 percent is higher than the 24 percent the top 1 percent is actually paying. But the current top tax bracket carries a 35 percent rate, and the president wants to raise that to almost 40. foxnews.com